Iodine for navels??

[stevek]

We've been calving cows for almost 30 years and have never seen the need to use idodine on navels yet. This year seems to be proving wrong. We have moved and of course our cows moved with us, but the new place has better facilities than before. How do some of you guys and gals administer the idodine to the navels, how much, exactly when, etc. Would like to hear from a few of you.(not exactly new to calving, but a little confused with success this year)

[surespendalot]

Seldom have had to use it myself, but all it takes is a squirt bottle and a generous shot around and over the navel as soon as they are born. You are in different facilities to what the cows are used to so you may come up against new "bugs" that your cows don't have immunity to. Sure hope that they don't cause you too much rouble. Next year will be better.

[bbattist]

here in the maritimes we calve a lot when the weather is not what you would call favourable,damp and cool,with lots of mud around. I most often dip the navel, sometimes missing the odd one. I use teat dip that the dairy guys use. I used to use the straight iodine but found that the navels would swell up later on,maybe in two months time. Vet told me that the straight iodine is too strong and kills some of the tissue around the navel,as well as any bugs, which leads to infection later on. I believe the percentage of iodine in the strong stuff is around 10% and the teat dip at 2-4%, I'm guessing here. The ones that I do miss don't give me a lot of grief either, sometimes I will see some swelling in a week or two and then give them a shot of penicillin(long acting)and they turn out okay.The navel area may always look enlarged but doesn't seem to be a problem. This is what I do but some of the other guys around here say let the cow look after it by licking the calf.

[bbattist]

Just an added note on administering the iodine that I forgot to mention. I put about 3/4 inch in a small container( small pop bottle with top cut off) and dip the complete navel in it cord and all swishing up and down which forces some of the liquid up inside. The only problem is that it is easier done when the calf is standing,It can be done just after birth but you may have to fight the cow off while tring to tip calf over to get at the navel,good luck.

[surespendalot]

You never actually said what problems you were running into that made you think that you need to use iodine. For years now the only calves that get it are the c-sections at the vets, and recently that has been pretty few. (thank goodness!!) If I do get a navel ill (we had one this year and it was a c-section at the vets) I use either a 5 day treatment of tri-vetran or 2 teatments of nuflour about 5 days apart.

[ouellet]

Ten years ago we started to work with nature, not against. We calve in May and do not touch a calf, we only looke at thenm form distance with telescope. We sent the iodine bottle to garbage and never had a problem.